Many computer users today receive information from a number of different sources, and utilize a number of different devices or modalities in order to access this information. For example, a user may receive e-mail and instant messages over a computer, pages over a pager, voice-mail over a phone, such as a cellular (“cell”) or landline phone, and news information over the computer. With the ever increasing amount of information available, and the numerous modalities for communicating such information, it difficult for users to receive and process the information according to where the user happens to be, what frame of mind or state the user may be in, and the communications modality that the user may have access to.
As an example, a user may be away from his or her computer, but receive an important e-mail. In many instances however, the user may only have access to a cell phone or a pager. Thus, messages transmitted via one modality (e.g., e-mail) are not automatically transferred or communicated to another modality. Consequently, important time may lapse before the user actually receives the message. In some cases, messages may become useless before they are actually received since the message itself required a response or action by the user within a given timeframe. As another example, the user may be working on the computer, yet have turned off the ringer and voice-mail indicator on the phone in order to avoid disturbances while concentrating on the computer. If an important voice-mail were left during this time, however, the user would generally have no way of knowing whether an important message was received unless they routinely checked the voice mail.
In contrast to potentially not responding to an important message or alert, many messages/alerts received may not be as important to the user. For example, an e-mail from the user's manager or co-worker generally should receive higher priority than reception or review of the latest sports scores. Thus, the value of the information contained in a message or alert should be balanced with the costs associated with disruption to the user. Costs and value may be context sensitive, however. This may include locations the user happens to be, activity in which the user is currently engaged, and the communications modality the user has access to. In addition to managing communications and related modalities as described above, users also receive and subsequently process various other messages and/or alerts. This may include alerts from increasing numbers of services, error messages, and computerized offers for assistance, for example.